Mentor Connection

PRODUCT DESIGN FOR MENTORING MATCH APP

INTRODUCTION

A mentoring partnership can be rewarding to both people, personally and professionally. It's an opportunity to develop communication skills, expand your viewpoints, and consider new ways of approaching situations. But finding the right mentor is about more than just finding someone you admire and asking them for advice.

My role

This project was created as part of a design exercise I was given.
I led the Product Design - User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) - of this project.

Main task

1. Insights & Ideation
2. Building the Project Vision
3. Planning and scope definition
4. User Interface & Experience

Design Process

Competitive research - Pain points

I did, however, found some problems with those solutions.

1. First, I think that they missing a “tailor made” matching - so it’s not feeling personal enough.

2. I also expected to see a holistic process - a good match is not enough.

3. And finally, an important part that was missing is clear definition of mentor-mentee expectations. A major factor in a success of a relationship.
   

Insights from similar apps research

1. In both cases, there is a connection between two people with similar interests.

2. Users have the ability to choose in order to avoid bad experiences.

3. Aligned expectations are key to a successful relationship.

I interviewed 10 women, working in different areas in the tech industry, all have experience as either mentoring or mentee.
The goal of these interviews was to get a better understanding of mentoring relationships as experienced by the women that I’ve talked to.

Pain points from the interviews

After talking to both mentors and mentees I could easily identify a several pain points:

1. Mentees talked about how hard it is to find the right mentor,
   but also about the lack of clarity about the process.

2. Mentors most common pain point was mentees who are coming
   unprepared to the process.

Insights from the interviews

For sparking my imagination and aligning with the core insights and user needs, I have used the HMW questions, a method that I’ve found very useful in this case because it helped me break that larger challenge up into smaller actionable pieces.

Problem - Goal - Solution

The problem

Mentees are falling-out from mentoring process after a few sessions.

My goal

Create a good mentorship experience and to reduce the number of mentees
dropping out of the process.

Solution

An app that will match mentors and mentees based on their skills, experience
and motivation, while giving an end to end support during the entire process,
in order to help them build a successful relationship

Wireframes - Sketching & Planing

Building on the brainstorming insights, I started sketching ideas for the app structure. 
This process involved a lot of writing and sketching, but eventually I reached the structure
I felt satisfied with.

Wireframes flow

After a couple of paper iterations I had the general idea ready, so I switched to Axure, where it’s easier to move things around.

This was the final result of the user flow after a couple of iterations in Axure.
I laid out all of the pages so I could visualize how each piece related to one another and how a user would access each section of the app.

Flow №1 - 

Signup & match test

ONBOARDING (User story)

Anna used to work as a marketing manager and now she wants to make a career change, and move to Product management. She is looking for a mentor that will guide her throwout this change and that can answer some of her questions.

She is signing up with the app, adding her personal details and is then directed to a page that asks her which track she would like to take.

QUESTIONNAIRE - PART 1 - MENTEE PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

The next step is to answer some questions that would later on help the mentor learn about here professional background. Anna selects the “Corporate employee” options and mention that she specialised in marketing.

The final screen is giving her a quick summary - that she can edit and change.

QUESTIONNAIRE - PART 2 - MENTEE’S EXPECTATIONS

The next step in answering a few questions related to her expectations:
She wants her mentor to be expert in product management - that would be perfect for her goals.

QUESTIONNAIRE - PART 2 - OPEN ENDED QUESTIONS

And finally a few open-ended questions- this is where Anna can add more details and write some text about her goals - using the templates that the app suggesting her.

Flow №2 - 

Discover, filter & choose

EXPLORE RESULTS

Anna is browsing through mentor profiles that were matched for her.
She notices that some of the mentors are located far away from her, which will make a face to face meeting hard.

The top of the page has all the necessary information: a photo of the mentor, option to view a short intro video, a button for mentoring request, personal details, etc.

FILTER RESULTS
 
I have ordered the filters categories and values according to importance, to ensuring that
users can easily discover their desired filters.
High-level filter categories at the top of the list, and the more specific ones towards the bottom.

EXPLORING THE MENTORS PROFILE
 
Anna found Keren, who lives near by.
In order to further look into her details she presses on her card to get more information.
As she reads through her card she thinks it can be an interesting connection.

MENTORING REQUEST
 
Before sending out the request, Anna fills out her desired mentorship length,
and elaborates on what she’s looking for and why.
This form is used as a final validation before reaching out to the mentor.

Her mentor will then view her request at his own feed, view her profile and learn more about her - and then decide whether she would approve her request or not.

MENTOR VIEWING REQUESTS
 
Keren (the mentor) receives Anna’s request.
She finds that Anna’s goals are similar to hers and she feels like she has a lot to offer her. 
So she is accepting her request.

Anna (the mentee) receives a match message.
She can now get to know Keren and see if they have a good connection.

The meeting will appear on the top part of the feed, use as a reminder when entering the app

Afterthoughts

Since mentors have pointed out that the mentees are not sharing enough background information and details when contacting them I’ve decided to protect them, by adding this validation popup.

A mentee that didn’t fail in all the needed sections in his profile will not be able to send a mentoring request.

Design Solutions

During the visual design state I really wanted to go further and explore how the app would look.
My aim was to create a highly aesthetic/intuitive bridge to maximize the user experience and the product’s overall appeal.